The Houston Astros made a front-office hire Tuesday that shows how much the study of statistics has become part of baseball. Don't think this new breed is not impressed with itself, either.

After new general manager Jeff Luhnow brought in his top stat guy from the St. Louis Cardinals, Sig Mejdal, he bestowed upon him a title some might consider a bit pretentious for baseball: Director of Decision Sciences.

Seriously. Not calling him Stat Guru or King Stathead is understandable. But what about something like Director of Analytics? Not lofty enough?

"I do think it's a departure from what's here today," Luhnow told the Houston Chronicle in explaining the new position.

And what exactly will a Director of Decision Sciences do?

"Oversee the architecture and ongoing operation of all the systems that we're going to utilize to make better baseball decisions," Luhnow told the Chronicle.

Oh, OK.

Mejdal at least has a background to warrant a highbrow title. According to an Astros' release, Mejdal, 46, has been a member of SABR (The Society for American Baseball Research) since grade school. He earned two engineering degrees at the University of California at Davis and later completed advanced degrees in operations research and cognitive psychology/human factors. He has worked at Lockheed Martin and for NASA.

If the Astros' gig doesn't work out, he should not have trouble finding another job, especially after having such a fancy title to put on his resume.

Luhnow makes another unusual move

In a front-office world dominated by men, Luhnow went against tradition by naming a woman, Stephanie Wilka, the team's new coordinator of amateur scouting.

Wilka, a former cheerleader at Harvard, has worked in community relations with the Dodgers and Red Sox. She earned a law degree from Pepperdine and passed the California bar exam last July, according to the Astros' release.